RED LINES: FILLING THE GAPS IN INTERNATIONAL LAW ENFORCEMENT

摘要

Roughly two years into the conflict in Syria, President Obama's infamous red line inspired a wave of criticism and uncertainty when he pledged U.S. military intervention if there was movement or use of chemical weapons by any actor on the ground. The Syrian conflict had borne witness to egregious violations of international law, and yet multilateral enforcement of those laws had failed to materialize. This Note examines the potential for red lines to serve as legal mechanisms to circumvent international paralysis and enforce existing international law by proposing new legal standards that may eventually become binding customary international law. This Note proposes a framework for evaluating whether a red line may legitimately be proposed to fill a gap in international law enforcement and if so, what the threat of the red line may be. Using the cases of Syria, Iran, Ukraine, and the Russian intervention in Crimea, this Note then applies the proposed framework to evaluate whether President Obama's red lines have contributed to greater consistency and legitimacy in international law enforcement.